I’ll be honest with you: this was the first dance performance I’ve seen – EVER! And I could not have hoped for a better introduction to the dance world.
I’ve always been curious about dance but, mostly staying in my comfort zone that is music, have been waiting for something to give me the final impetus to visit a show.
This call of fate happened when I saw that MOMIX was coming into town – coincidentally, shortly after a friend (from abroad!) had told me about their beautiful show. So with its reputation preceding, I decided that I had to check it out.
And I’m very glad I did$$s$$ it proved nowhere near as heavy, inaccessible, or pretentious as my former clichés about contemporary dance had led me to expect. It was easily enjoyable, partly due to the fact that it was more than ‘just’ a dance performance$$s$$ it was a perfect symbiosis of dance, visuals and music through which MOMIX managed to create a magical, ethereal atmosphere in which the dancers seemed to defy gravity.
MOMIX prove inventively imaginative in the tools they are using to deliver a stunning show, their dancers turning into sea creatures that sculpt curious formations through graceful and beautiful movements that seem beyond human. After I had figured out the first trick (which is the illumination of the stage with black light coupled with the dancers’ full-body, half white and half black suits, creating initially confusing visual effects), the puzzle over the feasibility of certain scenes never ended. Some scenes remain a mystery to me even now.
The first half of the show was titled “Sea of Tranquility”, in which the dancers represented graceful sea animals. Through their gentle, gracious, and slow movements they seemed to float through water.
The second half, “Bay of Seething”, was more lively and showed more variety. The suit/black-light tactics of the first half were relaxed and I was moved by one particular scene – the very one about which my friend had raved most and which I had anticipated eagerly: the incredibly beautiful interplay of two bodies between unity and separation.
I really enjoyed the show and it left me wanting to explore contemporary dance more – especially after the curtain call, which revealed and finally gave faces to the beautiful, graceful dancers previously hidden in the suits. Right then I thought that it was a bit of a shame that they hadn’t come into their own as individuals more – but, ultimately, it was worth the disguise for the sake of the striking visual effects that made the show so unique.
MOMIX’S Lunar Sea is at London’s Sadler’s Wells until 25 October. For details and bookings, click here.
